


Cooking Implements

by theheadandthekin



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Humor, Light BDSM, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 20:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10316081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheadandthekin/pseuds/theheadandthekin
Summary: One Saturday afternoon, Abbie gets a little silly. Crane doesn't react quite like she expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I always have them do it in the kitchen, but I do.

She wouldn’t ever be able to say what possessed her to do it.

Maybe it was the fact he’d beaten her at chess for the first time in weeks and she wanted to get one over him again. Maybe it was that she was three beers in and feeling a little silly. Maybe it was that he was currently fixing her a sandwich—a Reuben with homemade sauerkraut on homemade marble rye that beat her favorite deli—and it was _cute_. Maybe somewhere deep in her brain she suspected he’d find it funny.

Maybe she just wanted to test him.

Maybe she just wanted to _push_ him.

But, no: no one would ever know what exactly made Abbie Mills, on an otherwise normal, quiet Saturday afternoon in April, pick a spatula up out of the drying rack and smack her partner on the ass with it.

But she did.

(And it wasn’t a particularly light smack, either.)

Once the silicone connected with his breeches … well, her plan, such as it was, ended there. A little forethought probably would have been a good idea.

She did sort of expect, once it was happening, that she’d be rewarded with a flustered, indignant, “Miss Mills!”

She wouldn’t say she _hoped_ for that, but it would be a very _Crane_ thing to do.

He _did_ flinch. But he didn’t squeak, he didn’t exclaim, and he didn’t even turn around. What if she had crossed a line? Well, she _had_ crossed a line. Playful touching was a strictly above-the-waist affair in their household. He’d dig tickling fingers into her side; she’d ruffle his hair. _Why_ that was the case was unspoken.

_Shit._

The natural thing, of course, was to do it again. Leaning toward the island, she tried valiantly not to giggle and almost missed.

No flinch this time.

It was the beer—definitely—making her pout. “You’re a damn stick in the mud.”

She underlined her point by pressing the edge of the spatula into his flesh. Flesh that was surprisingly ample for an otherwise gangly white dude.

Abbie counted ten accelerating heartbeats until he reacted.

“And here I thought I was only playing _personal chef_.”

He said it sharply, but not snidely. A little tipsy, Abbie would admit she liked it when he snarked back, when he was bit more rough and uncourtly, droll and unruffled. A little less antique. She liked it when his spine stiffened—not to the point of being an _asshole,_ just to the point of reminding her he could catch her if she fell, disarm her if she cracked.

Lately, he’d been too careful with her. Too _perfect._ It freaked her out.

She sidled up next to him, spatula now resting in her hand. “You can be both …? Thought you were a Renaissance man, Chef Stick-in-the-Mud.”

He hummed, but still didn’t look at her, instead slicing one sandwich down the middle. “So, what is making me a ‘stick in the mud’ this afternoon, Lieutenant? Besides, of course, my choice to ignore your prodding my _double jug_ with that … utensil.”

“ _Buns,”_ she corrected automatically, distracted by how damn good the Reuben looked.

She reached in front of him with her left hand to grab a half.

He caught her wrist, the angle and his long arms effectively pinning her against his side.

“Spatula first.”

She could twist out and escape; Abbie knew he wouldn’t actually restrain her. But what was the fun in that?

Instead, she snaked her right elbow from out between their bodies, trying to get her hand and the spatula free.

“Miss Mills.” His voice had dropped so low, she _felt_ it more than she heard it. “If I were you, I would not even begin to entertain the notion.”

It finally dawned on her why he’d been slow to answer, why he’s not moved from his spot at the island. It wasn’t because he was overly concerned with making sandwiches.

Or ignoring her, exactly.

She looked up at his profile and it sobered her up in record time. His eyes were closed and the muscles in his jaw were jumping with tension. Wriggling a bit—experimentally, to see if she could read a reaction on his face—she got the spatula free enough to tap the inside of his knee and journey up the back of his thigh.

“Why _not_?”

He shifted his grip on her wrist into holding her hand and finally looked down at her, his near-black eyes focused on where her tongue was just poking out of her mouth, running a short path along her lips.

Her stomach flipped at the naked intensity of his gaze. “ _Answer_ me, Crane.”

With a little jostling that brought her even closer, he somehow was able to catch her other hand. The spatula dropped to the floor. “I would rather show you.”

“Okay.”

He tilted his head. “Okay? You understand that to which you are assenting?”

Little sparks danced down her spine; this hadn't been the plan--not that there'd been any plan--but she wasn't going to stop him from _finally_ making a move. Possibly for the first time in his life, which was pretty sexy. He was letting her see exactly what she could do to him.

And who was she kidding. She _did_ like it when he was careful with her. “I’m not drunk. So, yeah. I do.”

“Abbie. You understand we do not return from this. Nor do I wish to.”

Prior to her time in the Catacombs, the idea of chaining herself to him further would’ve sent her into a panic. But that was then, before whatever happened there … happened there.

She consciously dropped any echo of her earlier teasing tone, her silly game. Suddenly, she wanted—really wanted—to match his vulnerability, his choice not to mask what he wanted for once, with her own. “Me neither.”

Abbie didn’t have a photographic memory, but she’d always remember the moment just before he kissed her for the first time. The afternoon sunlight that shafted through the window, illuminating a distorted rectangle across his neck and cheek. The handful of white hairs in his beard she’d never noticed before. The heat that bloomed across her chest. The bony ridge of his nose sliding against hers. The sharp smell of vinegar from the open container of sauerkraut on the counter. The slightly bitter aftertaste of beer in her own mouth.

When she opened her lips under his and deepened the kiss, he boosted her up onto the counter.

She took the opportunity to smack his ass with her bare hand. It didn't exactly connect, not through the coarse cotton, so she just _squeezed._

He rewarded her with a half-swallowed grunt and she pulled back just enough to catch a breath.

“You into that kinda thing, Crane?”

He hooked his hands under her thighs and pulled her flush against him, then went to work finding the most sensitive places along her neck.

“I’ve no idea,” he offered between kisses. ”But I am happy to have … cooking implements or spanking or … or whatever pleases you … play a role in our _amorous congress.”_

She giggled. What else was there to do? “How long have you been saving that up?”

He tugged at her shirt. “Years.”


End file.
